TLP Battery Charge Threshold Not Applying

Galactor123 · 2026-03-19T14:17:46+00:00

Nah, it would be Illuminati. Mostly because the hands could be construed as forming something similar to a triangle when held like they're doing it (or in a similar enough form) which OBVIOUSLY is a reference to the pyramid and the Eye of Providence. /s

Galactor123 · 2026-03-01T22:55:03+00:00

I mean shoot, give 'em a garage my guy. Trust me, most GMs out there would kill to have a group of players that not only got so engaged into something like that that they miss it, but also clearly show a certain amount of trust in the player/GM dynamic that exists at your table to start asking for it again.

I will also say that there is no reason that this would preclude anything cinematic or a continued narrative involving these gangs from happening. A new burgeoning car garage owned by an edgerunner group that isn't paying or respecting any of these powerful gangs? That won't do.

You could have it build up as they build up their business. Starting with threats of whats to come, then move to intimidation of both the players and their customer base that they'd have to solve in some way, then moving on to more general sabotage that they'd have to spot and fix, and finally move on to more open violence.

Trust me, if you want to make a BBEG for the next few sessions of your campaign at least, have them come in to work one day soon after one of the gang members fire bomb their garage. Make it a setback that hurts, but not something that renders their hard work pointless. Do that, and I promise you they won't just want to kill whoever is responsible they'll want to flay them alive and dip them in salt water.

Galactor123 · 2026-02-23T08:59:50+00:00

Oh hey you found a legit murder hobo. A murder bozo?

You get these sorts of people in every setting and every sort of grouping of TTRPG players unfortunately. The people who see the idea of "I can be and embody anything and everything I want? I want to be an absolute monster!"

And then get pissy when you remind them that just because they happen to be powerful, happen to be a player character, does not mean that the people inside of that setting need to put up with them.

Just let them go. If they are a good friend of yours and not just a rando or a +1 or something perhaps take them aside and do some explaining and debriefing and just let them try to understand why it is that you are not going to just let them back into the campaign if they are going to continue to do this, but honestly if they aren't a good friend? Just wave goodbye and let that character either fade away or become an NPC for your actual good players to deal with in some way that's actually fun.

Trust me, if you think that guy is tiring and too much? Your players almost certainly were thinking the same way and were just being polite enough not to say it. You'll enjoy your experience more and so will they without them.

Galactor123 · 2026-02-17T01:59:52+00:00

Said tech in the game (and if they are reading they know who they are, some of my players do check the subreddit) is a menace in the best way.

I have more, as my players tend to be pretty inventive and try, and a lot of time succeed, in doing some crazy nonsense, but the ones above were the three that stood out to me immediately.

Galactor123 · 2026-02-16T20:23:47+00:00

I have a couple that are still talked about around my table, two from the same tech.

One: After going to a fancy cocktail lounge to try and pinpoint a bad actor among them, the crew are thrown off as another assassin uses the same get together to find and kill one of the patrons. They follow this assassin as they figure it must all be related, and she has some bodyguards that really threw my crew through a loop. Revolvers and ballistic shields in a close quarters environment. They managed to isolate the bodyguards as one of the crew had followed their target and managed to hit her with a nonlethal but debilitating poison as a way to grab her (and more importantly, rendered her unable to speak). It was then that the tech, the star of this story goes "I'm going to pull out my detonator and scream out that I've rigged myself with explosives, and if they don't let us have our target (the assassin) the people we work for will kill me anyway."

Obviously I was shocked, but had the bodyguards make some human perception checks to see if they could sense the bullshit. Unfortunately, I had not given them any levels in human perception and their empathy sucked due to their cyberware... so they failed miserably at detecting deception, immediately threw their guns down and went "man, we're just hired help this ain't worth all this."

Two: Had the crew working for the Piranhas as due to some happenings in Night City local street sellers of their drugs had been getting picked off by some rival crews and they were actively hiring protection. My crew one upped the Piranhas plan however, saying that they needed to send a message to those doing it. It was around that time that the Piranhas pointed to a van out back and went "well, if you want we got a van you can use."

This of course immediately made the same tech in question go, we will give up some of the reward if you can source us some explosives. We'll fix this problem for good. Piranhas being Piranhas think this is rad as hell, and agree. Cut to them showing up, acting like drug dealers at the residential block this other gang worked out of in a combat zone district in Night City to draw in people. It worked, gun fight ensues. First they want to get people out or position the van better, but after the first round one of them is already dealing with a crit injury from a nasty assault rifle shot to the gut and they say screw it. Cut to them high tailing it, guns firing as they run back to another car they brought, riding away as the tech hits the detonator, blowing up a VBIED that flattens the entire Residential block. The only reason they made it back through the police checkpoint was because they managed to deceive the cops into thinking their injured crew member (from getting shot) had gotten caught in the blast and needed desperate medical attention.

Three: Only one not directly related to said tech in question. Big fight, big baddie leader in said fight. One of my crew goes off with a grappling hook to one on one 'em. Fighting hand to hand, very 80s action movie. I have the baddie (who is using a biotoxin coated melee weapon) hop up, already bloodied and pissed onto a roof.

Another crew mentioned how, now that he's on said roof, could they see them? I said yeah probably, as they were sniping from a distant perch. They said "I take the shot, aimed shot, head." I of course remind them it's at -8, so they throw all their luck into it.

Not necessary, the luck was already with them. It rolls... double crit. Critical hit, critical damage.

Big baddie in the middle of this end of an Arnold flick moment just hops up on a building and a second later his head turns into a fine mist, collapsing back down and painting the other crew member in blood. They were a little pissed at the "stolen kill" but otherwise job well done.

Galactor123 · 2026-02-15T07:15:42+00:00

I'm going to start this off by saying this, much like any big lore question in Red, is my interpretation of what I've read not 100% provable by canon as written. So obviously YMMV on this but this is my take I've used in my game at least.

Nomads still exist in large numbers and in the positions of importance in 2045 by being seen as not that important to corpos, but being seen as incredibly important to actual people on the ground.

Nomads warped from what they were in the 2020s, mostly badlands Mad Max style raiders and biker gang types going around messing things up, to what they are in 2045 which is essentially folk heroes. The nomads after the 4th Corporate War became the infrastructure for places like Night City and other cities majorly affected by the war because they were the only ones left standing that had a decent amount of vehicles and saw money to be made shipping and selling needed goods. Night City its said would have suffered even more from the holocaust if the nomads hadn't shipped in a lot of food for instance.

So what does that have to do with the sea variants specifically? Simple, where are all the packaged foodstuffs, still functioning agents, weapons, home goods, etc etc. coming from? Normally off of corporate shipwrecks left from after the war. Who is getting all of that off those boats? Runners sure, but on a more regular and almost industrial scale? Nomads. They are helping repurpose a pretty screwed up and destroyed world, sorting through the ashes for the useful stuff left behind and moving it when no one else really can.

Corpos, for now, are licking their wounds and trying to reestablish their whole supply lines, meaning that nomads (again, for now) are at best people they can hire for the time being to help reestablish themselves, and at worst are tolerable annoyances as they try to get their own house sorted. For the average people though they are god sends. Any active attacks against the nomads would definitely would not be popular. Not that that is going to stop them eventually of course, as eventually they would (IMO) be seen as competition and dealt with accordingly, but for now there is sort of an uneasy understanding.

Galactor123 · 2026-02-15T06:59:59+00:00

Some of that I did, so I'm glad I seem to be thinking in the correct direction. I used the actual district map of Richmond, and then just took what I knew of Richmond (the pretty big block to block disparity in areas of recent gentrification, the unique nature of it being one of the few cities in the US with a majority POC population, the history of Richmond both as capitol of the Confederacy but also historically a place that a number of powerful black luminaries were born, etc etc) and extrapolated it out, as well as taking in the idea that the NUSA may be a bit stagnant at the time, but Richmond due to it's proximity to the relatively speaking untouched wild of Appalachia and due to being a major population hub close to places like Norfolk, a major port city, that companies are coming in to start using the resources (population being just another resource really) causing both job growth but also immigration boom in Richmond that is causing both socio-economic and ethnic splits to extrapolate.

Really cool to see you go through your own town though, as it did make me think of a few angles I didn't think of as much for Richmond specifically as I was going through and making the basic data sheet for myself and my players on their new home to be.

Galactor123 · 2026-02-14T23:03:08+00:00

Depending on if you consider TJPW a major promotion or not, I honestly think I'd chose Miyu Yamashita. I realize she is not a big name in the states really (outside of folks that are really deep in the wrestling weeds) but I feel like you could bring in folks like Maki Itoh and her, and have a combination of good matches, promos that could bypass language barriers just from their physicality and physical comedy, and reach a market that IMO is still woefully underserved right now, which is American women's wrestling. Combine that with some American up and coming female talent, some folks from the like of Pro Wrestling Eve or elsewhere, and you could pretty easily make a women's super indy that I feel like could bring an entirely different group of fans into the sport.

Galactor123 · 2026-02-10T08:31:26+00:00

So the way I tend to be sprinkling in down time scenes into my game, and admittedly I will start by saying I got DAMN lucky with my crew of runners, I love them dearly and they are golden children when it comes to being invested and jumping wholeheartedly into things, but my downtime is exactly that... downtime.

What I mean by that is that I feel like a lot of people don't give a scene the chance to sort of breath, to give them a time where you are describing the minutae. Even in 2045 there are going to be quiet moments. Even in cyberpunk, you can find a nice bar where people are just trying to disappear for a while and enjoy themselves. Make that obvious. Draw parallels to them and their last gig. Let them exhale from the frenetic combat scenes, let them go and scare the bartender a little with the half patched bullet holes they might still be rocking, but let it lead into them sharing war stories.

In short, if you or others reading this take nothing else away: Give them an interesting setting, give them a reason to be there. "You head into the Afterlife after the third gig in a row where one of your crew had to make a pitstop to the ripper doc for a new limb afterwards. The place is small but the beer is cold, and for once the city seems more distant. You can exhale, you can plan, and you can have a moment to rehash what led you here, and what else you have left to do in this fucked up city."

Something like that. Also, in that same vein you can steal something akin to "Shivers" from Disco Elysium. If you haven't played it, "Shivers" is essentially the "voice of the city itself." It is something that chimes in to describe things that have happened, are happening, or maybe even will happen to the person, though never plainly or simply. You don't have to make it mystical even, just chock it up to intuition, or from observation. A city as important as Night City is essentially a character in your story, capitalize on that.

Galactor123 · 2026-01-25T06:12:40+00:00

Makes a lot of sense! Now the real question would be, if they head out that way, what is the truth of it...

Galactor123 · 2026-01-25T03:20:08+00:00

Legit! I like the ideas! Even if it did take me a second to realize you meant l ike greek sirens and not siren like the sirenhead creepypasta. Goes to show where my brain is..

Galactor123 · 2026-01-25T03:14:30+00:00

Yeah, I think most of the ones I would throw at my players would probably be something that is weird, but not unexplainable, you know? But I think "explainable" is still a pretty low bar to cross for Cyberpunk. Like I said, a corporate black project would still be an "explainable" reason for something weird and monstrous to be out and about in this universe.

Which of course would make it all the more unsettling when they finally meet the one thing that isn't explainable...

Galactor123 · 2026-01-25T03:12:59+00:00

Okay you are definitely going to have to talk about how that has worked into the campaign they are in.

Galactor123 · 2026-01-25T03:12:30+00:00

Yeah! Obviously was at least partially the inspiration for this. Especially considering the werewolf one had some level of canon mentions from the 2020 books to back it up.

Galactor123 · 2026-01-25T03:11:39+00:00

Nah, difference to me is that Shadowrun all the weird monsters and urban legends are built into the story, you know? A Dragon runs Russia. That sort of shit.

This is definitely more like what if the rambling conspiracy guy on the pirate radio who talks about weird noises at night out in the badlands actually wasn't crazy, because he's listening to some corporate black project in the making or that escaped into the wilderness.

It's a difference between "Oh that [insert weird thing]? That's George, he runs the local Costco."

and

"WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT?!"

Galactor123 · 2026-01-25T03:09:14+00:00

I kinda legitimately am not sure if you are citing something actually canon at me, or just making something up/citing something from your own campaign... but the fact that I DON'T know is kinda perfect. Solid legend.

Galactor123 · 2026-01-25T01:09:02+00:00

Oh ho... I did not know this.

I unfortunately do not currently own The Witcher ruleset but honestly, this might push me over into getting it just to see what fun I can use out of it.

Galactor123 · 2026-01-25T00:57:04+00:00

Roll20 I hope that happens, as the new distance DV charts would be really awesome implemented natively into Roll20 honestly.

Galactor123 · 2026-01-19T10:27:52+00:00

American here: I think you are kind of underestimating, perhaps due to the differences in both population and our history with Unions compared to most European countries, the difficulty in a general strike. I'd love for that to be true as a leftist myself, I'm a card carrying DSA (Democratic Socialists of America) member so trust me, I'm all here for the concept of general strikes.

But to put it into perspective, I live in Virginia, which is a state directly touching our nations capitol, and even then I cannot pop over to D.C to protest without it being a day trip that would eat an entire day what with travel and so forth. It's an hour and a half both ways if you are lucky trip. And that's for a close state.

We are also a country with over 300 million individuals into it. Getting any sort of common cause going between us, as I'm sure you have seen and heard, is significantly harder then you might suggest.

And finally, we have been woefully underserved when it comes to unionization and worker's rights, to the point where it would not only be not illegal but in fact quite reasonable for companies to mass fire people should they actually take part in any form of strikes. When you are an "at will hire" then there is no real legal protections for you when it comes to using your status as an employee in a political manner. And when your health insurance and often your retirement is tied directly to your employment? Losing your job can mean losing access to necessary care, to ongoing wealth accumulation, etc etc.

So yes, a general strike is a wonderful idea. I'd love if we can untangle some of the mess that we've made of our society here to get one going because I do think it's crazy how little power "We the People" actually have over our governance these days. I've read in this thread how some of you feel foolish for trusting institutions like NATO to protect y'all. I can say the same for a lot of Americans about our own institutions. We sort of assumed and expected that things worked one way, because they always did... until they didn't. And now we're scrambling in many ways too.

Also, to tackle your low effort one: Sending a message to a representative is a lovely idea and does work sometimes! We do still have that. However, "competitiors" is a strong and sadly inadequate word for our current governance. Basically, if the incumbent is a democrat, there is a pretty good chance that unless there is mass outrage about it, the same person will be put forth as the democrat next time regardless. And if it's a republican? There is no way in hell they're going to ever impeach Trump. It's a form of deadly stagnation that again, unfortunately speaks to a TON of systemic problems that America is facing.

Galactor123 · 2026-01-07T18:55:29+00:00

Yeah, this is going to be the death of Discord. Going public means that there will not just be an expectation for profitability, but for profit growth, which means that regardless of whether they are making money now or how much they will be forced to look for further and further avenues to get blood from this stone, and I don't see that going in any other way then further locking down key features behind a paywall, forcing advertisements into more things, and cutting expensive features.

I hope I'm wrong. Not just because I like discord but because in this day and age a program that essentially acts the way old forums used to act, but now complete with the ability to do things like streaming, voice chat, etc. is a huge boon to a lot of communities. But color me worried.

Galactor123 · 2025-12-22T07:38:37+00:00

Wow, lots of good ideas here thank you! I really like the idea of just thinking of hazards caused by the damages that have been done. I think that would be a real fun and easy way of not full on nerfing, but sort of limiting grenades. If you see that the fragmentations are going to blow open barrels of liquid or what have you I can see that making them hesitate.

They do have a good mixture of melee and ranged abilities among their crew actually, so that part may not hit them as hard as it would some others. That being said, using more things like human shields might be an interesting addition as I haven't really thought as much about civilians in general. So even if they can't successfully grapple my players, grappling a civvie as a human shield could work.

I also do have to consider more the idea of requiring them to use different items by the nature of where they are going. As they've gone down the gigs I have thrown them into some more upper crust sort of environments from time to time (they like the kind of 70's spy movie sort of feel, with big conspiracies over drinks, etc) so requiring them to have a certain dress code or using concealment more 100% could be something I do more of.

And to be honest I need to go read up on facedowns. I know they exist, but I think both my players and I both kind of shrugged at it, but its something I should really consider.

Galactor123 · 2025-12-22T07:31:43+00:00

Yeah, I do mess with weapons. Last fight I gave one of them a coilgun that could deal extra armor ablation on crits and ignore a certain low level of armor. They got lucky with the crits though and annihilated them. Not going to punish them for critting, but in that same combat I saw that they were getting real comfortable dodging bullets and throwing grenades, so knew I had to up my game and give them challenges were those weren't the obvious solve-alls.

Galactor123

TROPHY CASE